


Hold Fast

by SongAboutExiles



Category: The Expanse (TV), The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey
Genre: Giving in to the Inevitable with Good Grace in the End, Happy Ending, Honestly It's Really Pretty Fluffy, M/M, No Ring AU, a bit fluffy, idiot in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-17 01:56:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14823011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SongAboutExiles/pseuds/SongAboutExiles
Summary: "You can have a home, you know. You can come home."





	Hold Fast

Amos was not really a man driven easily to introspection. He'd never been able to afford it - it was too much like second guessing himself. Once you went down that road, you were no good to anyone, especially the people who counted on you. 

That's why holding Prax in his head was driving him crazy. When they'd dropped Prax and Mei at Ganymede Station, he wasn't sure why he was secretly hoping Prax would ask him to stay. He couldn't, of course, it would suffocate him. 

But would it really? If he had a family? That was another luxury he'd never thought he'd be able to afford - he'd had himself sterilized just to avoid the possibility. But Mei wasn't a product of his bad genes, she was all sunshine and light and rainbows and shit. 

And Prax...well, Prax was different from anyone he'd ever known, ever touched. They'd had precious little time, and so much of it was bittersweet with the tinge of Prax's fear and sorrow, that it almost didn't seem real thinking back on it. Desperate kisses and handjobs all over the Roci. It was a miracle no one had ever walked in on them. 

Now they were gone, and it had left a hole in him that he couldn't fucking fill if his life depended on it. 

So here he was, climbing the stairs to the conn to find Alex in his expected spot in the pilot's chair. 

"Alex, I gotta go to Ganymede." It didn't even cost him that much to get the words out, to expose himself. 

"I was kinda wonderin' when you'd get around to askin' me," Alex drawled in his unbelievably confounding Mariner Valley accent. 

"So can you get me there?" Amos didn't blush - was probably incapable of it after the life he'd led - but it was a close thing. 

"Oh, I can get you there, buddy. But first..." Alex turned his uncannily observant eyes on him. "You gotta tell me this is the best thing for you. You walked away from them. You so sure he'll take you back?"

"Jesus, Alex, we didn't have a goddamned lover's quarrel. It was just...practicality. They needed to be safe." In a place where Mei could smell the earth and Prax could coax life from tiny seeds like some kinda fucking magician.

"Right. You know I see the camera feeds from alllll over the Roci right here. You may not have thought it was a lover's quarrel, but I think maybe it was." Alex raised his eyebrows in Amos' general direction.

"Look, Alex, I don't care. Whether or not it was...whatever it was...I think I made a pretty fucking huge mistake leaving." Amos was not one to make huge fucking mistakes, much less discuss them with such relative calm.

"Then let's get you there, okay? We got fuel to burn after that documentary, a clear title, and nowhere in particular we gotta be." Alex half-smiled. "You're not comin' back, are you?"

"Only if he won't have me." Saying goodbye to the Roci, her crew, his friends...that would be hard. But not anywhere near as hard as just not knowing.

"For the record, I think you're both just shit with your feelings and it never even occurred to him you'd want to stay." Alex was such a puzzle. Amos had never met a guy who liked to talk about feelings this much, except maybe Prax. But it was endearing in him. With Alex, it was just weird.

"Right. That's enough with the feelings for one night. Thanks, Alex." Amos took a deep breath and squeezed Alex's shoulder as he climbed the ladder back down. Now all he had to do was talk to Holden. That should go well. 

Turned out, Holden was as utterly unsurprised as Alex had been, and mercifully less inclined to discuss it. All he said was that it'd be hell to find another mechanic as good as Amos was, and that he'd better come back if it all went to shit. 

Amos returned to his bunk feeling somewhat better and scared as hell all at the same time. He queued up the last tight-beam he'd had from Prax and Mei and watched it over and over till he fell into a restless sleep. We miss you, they said in unison at the end of the beam. Soon enough, he'd know one way or another. 

The trip to Ganymede seemed to take forever, although rationally Amos knew it was just as long as it had always been. He'd packed his gear and weapons in one big duffel, which was just sitting anchored by the airlock waiting on him. Maybe mocking him. That fucking duffel was sketchy. 

When he'd said goodbye to the now much-diminished crew and left them to try to recruit a new mechanic, he checked local time. Middle of the day shift. Amos knew just where Prax would be. 

When Amos entered the one reconstructed garden dome, a tiny parody of what had once been, but a start, his gaze flew like an arrow straight and true to Prax. He was kneeling in the soft earth, checking the progress of his fragile, delicate transplants. Amos felt his heart squeeze in his chest at the sight. Finally, Prax was back where he belonged. But goddamn, 204 days was a hell of a long time. 

He gripped the shady duffel tighter and walked right up to him. Prax didn't even look up, he was so engrossed in his work. Amos felt like some kind of giant standing over the kneeling man. He got how easy it would be for a violent thug like him to stomp all of Prax's dreams into mulch. 

"Hey," he said softly, taking care to watch his boots and where they landed. 

Prax's eyes whipped up, and he almost fell on his ass. "Amos?" He asked it like maybe he'd had this daydream a time or two, and he wasn't sure if Amos was real.

"Yeah, Doc. I..." He set down his duffel on the garden path. "I...know you didn't ask me to stay, and I didn't offer, so maybe you don't want me here..."

That was all he got out before he had an armful of botanist clinging to him hard, hands making a fist in the fabric at the back of his jumpsuit. Even as he took the assault of Prax's slighter weight, he felt a greater weight ease inside him. If Prax didn't want him, he was doing a hell of a job showing him. 

So he held Prax, hard against his chest, and just stood there breathing in his scent. 

"In all those tight-beams, all I wanted to do was to beg you to come," Prax whispered harshly, his words muffled against Amos' neck. "But I thought you didn't want that." Or me, went unsaid.

"Fuck, Doc...I thought you didn't want me hanging around you and Mei..." He was hardly what any parent could call a role model. 

"Yeah, the guy who saved me, and who saved her. What a shitty influence." Prax pulled back to look Amos in the eye. "You can have a home, you know. You can come home."

Oh, fuck. Amos' heart ached, but for the first time in his life it was from something other than one miserable loss after another. "Gonna...gonna take me a bit to get used to that."

"Do we have time?" Prax released his death hold on Amos and raised a hand to cradle the side of his face. 

All Amos could manage was a short, shaky nod before Prax pressed their lips together. It was a sweet kiss, full of life and promise rather than desperation. Amos had never been kissed like that before, with something other than raw hunger.

He slid his hands down to Prax's narrow hips, squeezing them a little to keep him right there as the kiss deepened, tongues tangling, chasing each other from one mouth to another. It felt as natural as breathing, but Amos had to remind himself they were very much still in public, and safety was an illusion. Pulling apart from Prax took every ounce of his considerable willpower, but he did it. "Doc...tell me we can go." 

"Yeah, I was just finishing up." Prax was blushing, flustered. "Mei doesn't get out of school for another two and a half hours." He stepped back with a shy smile and began to gather his tools and put them away - quite securely, because he'd learned his lesson the hard way. 

When he was done, Amos picked up his duffel and followed Prax into the station. It was second nature to him to weave with Prax through the busy and chaotic spaces where reconstruction was in full swing. Prax's hole wasn't far from the gardens, in a nice, if small, block of flats reserved for highly-skilled personnel critical to the station's functionality. God knew, Amos had never lived anyplace half as nice as this, and again he felt like some kind of monstrous freak. 

The feeling intensified once inside the apartment. He took in the layout - a luxurious spread of a living and kitchen area and two bedrooms - and laid his bag down deliberate care. "This is really, really nice, Doc." It still smelled of fresh paint and new carpet.

"They just finished them and moved us up here." Prax turned and looked at Amos, insecurity writ on every line of his face. 

"I...are you okay?" Amos took a step toward him, and barely stopped himself from holding out his empty hands in a non-threatening gesture. 

"I'm kinda scared that I'm going to blink, and then you won't be there anymore." Prax echoed that one step closer together. 

"Not going anywhere, Doc." Even if he did feel like an impostor. "Look...can I just kiss you again?"

All Prax could manage was a nod, but it was all Amos was waiting for. He crossed the remaining space in two steps and swept Prax up in his arms again. The kiss was heated from the first collision of mouths, only they didn't have to stop this time. 

Amos could feel Prax hard against his belly, and fuck, he was certainly not the only one. He pulled back so Prax could catch his breath, staring into his lust-blanked eyes. "Tell me what you want." It wasn't a power trip to ask him - Amos was a fanatic about consent. 

"I want you to take me to bed," Prax murmured, reaching up to touch the side of Amos' face, those magical hands with their dirty nails and long, elegant fingers. Amos found himself leaning into that touch like a stray dog finally shown a scrap of human kindness. 

Amos just nodded, and let Prax lead him by the hand into his bedroom. The bed was, miraculously, a double. "Hey...don't worry. I won't hurt you." He'd rather die, but he left that unsaid.

"Do I look worried to you?" Prax's voice was downright sultry, and it went right to Amos' gut. 

"No." Amos came up behind Prax and wrapped one arm around his waist and used the other to pull down the zipper of his jumpsuit, and Prax ground his ass back against Amos' hard cock. "Jesus, Doc..." 

Prax shuddered when Amos' big hand slid down his belly, inside his underwear, and gripped his prick, stroking slowly as Amos mouthed kisses and soft bites against his neck and at the join of his shoulder. "So fucking pretty," he whispered in Prax's ear.

"Yeah, you are," Prax moaned and tugged Amos' hand free, turning toward him and then squatting to unstrap his boots. The position put him at mouth level to Amos' hard-on, and Amos groaned when he leaned in to nuzzle at the hard flesh through far too many layers of cloth. Part of his brain was fizzled out, but a small part of it was still puzzling at how the hell Prax could think he was, of all things, pretty.

He fisted a hand in Prax's short hair and gently tugged till Prax came up to his now-bare feet only to find himself in the midst of another torrid, open-mouthed kiss. Fuck if this man wasn't going to be the death of him. And he'd go happily.

A quick flurry of flying clothes later, interrupted only by more kisses, and they faced each other naked. Amos' eyes stared Prax up and down, wondering if this was real, if he could have this man and then do it again and again. Hopefully for the rest of his life. 

Prax, on the other hand, was staring in bare lust. "Christ, Amos." Amos was big all over, with the heavy, thick build of someone who grew up in a gravity well. He did find a blush for Prax - he wasn't used to being looked at like he was a fucking buffet at the end of a short-ration long haul. 

"Stop staring and come here," he murmured, grabbing Prax's hand and pulling him in tight, only to lift him easily until Prax's ankles crossed at the small of his back. They were of a height, but Prax, like so many Belters, felt like he was made of bird bones. Their cocks pressed together and Amos walked them to the bed, splaying Prax out on it like he was the damn buffet. 

"I really hope you got something slick, if I'm getting the message right." Amos watched Prax's long legs spread on the bed in offering. 

"Nightstand. I...think about you, about this, all the fucking time." 

Those words, that image, of Prax in this bed with his fingers buried in his ass and imagining it was him, was almost enough to make him come like a teenager. He pressed his head to Prax's flat belly and rummaged blindly in the drawer till he pulled out a tube which he tossed onto the bed. A moment later, he had Prax's cock down his throat. Fuck, he tasted so good. Amos wanted to just suckle, to root down and get him all the way down. 

Prax's cries were just a counterpoint to the beat of his heart hammering hard in his chest. Yes, yes, yes, was the chant that reached Amos through his fog of hunger, and he pulled off before Prax could lose it. Another time - many other times - he would do this till Prax filled his mouth. Not right now, though. 

Prax groaned, bereft, as Amos let his cock slip from his mouth to slap wetly against his belly. "God, fuck, Amos...need you in me."

"Shh, Doc, just gotta do something..." Because yes, he had to hoist Prax's narrow hips up and spread his ass wide and run his tongue over the furled little hole. The steady stream of cussing that rewarded his effort just urged him on. He used his thumbs to open Prax up enough to take his tongue and to push inside his musky heat with a muscular, obscene sort of hunger. 

Prax tasted even better here, and this time Amos didn't pull away. He teased and gave and took until Prax was a sweaty mess above him, fisting the sheets with one hand and Amos' hair with the other. His inner thighs were getting chafed from the beard, and that's what made Amos pull away, seriously considering shaving just so he could do this for fucking hours. Hours to pull his lover's desperate cries out of him. 

Amos crawled up Praxos' body to press their foreheads together, unsure if Prax would want to kiss after that, and fumbled for the tube. He slicked up his fingers and pressed one inside the grasping heat, going slow. Sure, Prax was no blushing virgin, but he'd meant it - he would not hurt him.

Prax just surged up to press their mouths together to swallow up his strangled cry, answering that question, and Amos could feel his body tense against him before he relaxed and rutted down on that finger. Clearly, he was ready for more. 

More ended up being three fingers buried deep, with Amos watching Prax's eyes as he brushed against his prostate. For the record, they rolled back in his head very fetchingly indeed. Something else he told himself he'd see again and again. "Fuck, you're perfect," he praised, until his own cock demanded attention in no uncertain terms. "Just fucking perfect." 

Prax tried and failed to catch his breath as he watched Amos slick up his straining prick with greedy eyes. Amos leaned over Amos, braced on one arm, and with the other hand he fed his cock into that utterly delicious heat, going slow but steady until he was buried balls-deep. 

"Oh god, yes, yes..." Prax clenched his fists around Amos' biceps, breathing shakily and pushing down till he relaxed around Amos' cock. 

"What, you want me to move?" Amos whispered into his ear, teasing just a bit. 

"Want you to fuck me," answered Prax, hooking his ankles this time behind Amos' thighs and tugging him in just that much deeper. 

Amos gasped and did as he was told. They found a rhythm together quicker than they had any right to, like they'd been doing this forever, and it was sticky-sweet and slow and deep, so deep. Prax wouldn't let him pull out all the way to thrust back inside, so he rocked in and out, making damn sure the broad head of his cock nudged at Prax's sweet spot over and over. 

His free hand found Prax's cock and stroked it in time to that primal rhythm because fuck, he was so close and he wanted to watch Prax fly apart for him first. It worked. Prax moaned his name in between a litany of cuss words that secretly endeared him to Amos even more, before he arched up and came hard in Amos' fist, seed spilling over calloused hands. 

That was all Amos could possibly take. He buried himself deep and hard one more time and lost it completely. His eyes greyed around the edges as he filled up that hot, perfect little hole until seed leaked out around him. Yeah, this was real - the most real thing he'd ever felt. It felt almost like there was something in that small room with them, something unseen but welcome. Something newborn and yet strong as iron. 

"Amos...I...I love you." Prax's voice was small as he came down from his orgasm, unsure suddenly if saying such things was permitted. "You don't have to..." Say it back? Feel it back? Fuck that. 

"I love you, too." Amos had always known what this thing was to him. If anything, it was a relief to finally say it. He laid his sweaty head on Prax's sweaty chest, and let Prax run his fingers over every inch of skin he could reach. 

"Wow." Prax blinked down at him sleepily. "I...didn't know it'd be this easy. But, I sorta did. That makes no sense. You fucked my brains out."

Amos chuckled at that and cast his eyes up to Prax's. "I know what you mean. It shouldn't be this easy, but it is." He gently pulled out and rearranged them on the bed till Prax was splayed out across his broad chest and his own arm was snugly around him.

"You know..." Amos wondered if he should even tell him, but it was kind of a funny story. "We had that documentary crew on the Roci, and both the woman and the man came onto me. And I told them..."

"...That you don't shit where you eat?" Prax laughed softly. "You told me that, too, but considering that your tongue was just in my mouth and your hand was down my pants, I kinda figured you were kidding yourself."

"Yeah, well..." Amos smiled shyly. "The cameraman was really working hard at it, got me talking about you, and I just...it's what tipped me over. I knew I was done." Done for, done in, just...done.

"And you kept the green wall growing." They'd spent hours in the galley, transplanting and growing and falling in love. Amos had sent a few tight beams of his own, and he may or may not have bragged about the wall a little bit. 

"Couldn't let it die, Doc. It was all I had of you." Amos pressed their foreheads together again. It felt good. Right.

"Not anymore. Now you have me. You have me, Amos." And god help you, seemed to be the trailing statement that never left his lips.

"And I'm the luckiest fucker in the Belt." Lest there be any doubt whatsoever.

Prax sighed and snuggled into the expanse of skin beneath his cheek. "Mei gets out of school soon. You want to come with me to pick her up?"

"I wouldn't miss it. We gotta seriously shower and maybe change the sheets - this hole probably smells like sex." Amos was most assuredly of a certain mind about not letting kids grow up too fast. 

"Mmm. Well, we'll have to deal with that at some point, because I only have so many sheets, but yeah." Prax grinned at him and pushed himself up. "You go shower, I'll change the bed." 

With a last kiss, Amos went to comply. Fuck, this shower was luxurious - plenty of hot water and enough room to turn around in. He scrubbed himself clean and put on a fresh set of clothes. All total, he was in the shower five minutes, tops. Old habits die hard. 

When he came out, Prax was done with the bed. Amos just stopped and looked at his naked botanist with his heart probably all up in his eyes. He figured they'd both just have to get used to that. 

"Hey, Doc...Do you have a secure lockup? Need to put the guns someplace safe." He bent to his duffel and pulled them free, taking the clips out to store away from the guns. 

"Yeah, in my room - I use it for some of the chemicals I have to use." Prax opened the slide-out bin and Amos carefully deposited the weapons and clips. 

"Do you mind if I find a place for my clothes?" Amos couldn't believe he was unpacking. Generally, he lived out of that duffel, ready to bug out any second. 

"Just shove stuff aside till it all fits." Prax detoured on his way to the bathroom to kiss Amos long and hard. 

"Shoo. We can't be late." Amos grinned as he watched Prax's ass entering the bathroom and starting the shower again. Instead of gaping at his lover in the shower, he made himself useful and stowed away his vanishingly small wardrobe before folding the duffel and finding a place for it on the top shelf of Prax's closet. Or maybe it was their closet. Huh, he had a closet. 

Huh, he had a family.

They waited together outside the schoolroom, Amos' nerves only betraying themselves in the way he was shifting his weight back and forth. "You sure she'll be happy to see me?"

Prax nodded at the door where students had begun streaming out. "I'd say so." He smiled when Mei caught sight of him, and they heard her delighted squeal as she rushed them, bypassing her father to hug the stuffing out of Amos. 

"Hey, Sunshine." Amos wasn't sure where the endearment had come from, but it felt right. Mei's smile was just like sunlight. 

"Amos! Are you here to stay with us?!" She looked up at him with that giant, megawatt smile. 

He stroked her hair and nodded. "Yeah, I'm here now, with you and your dad."

He was here now. With her and her dad.

**

One year later

**

Amos stood outside the schoolroom on his own. Prax had to work later than usual to deal with a new shipment of bulbs from Earth, although it was as common now for Amos to pick Mei up as it was for him to do it. 

The security uniform suited him, and so did the captain's insignia on his collar. He'd had to brute force his way from recruit all the way to the top, busting asses in the training ring until they were forced to give him the position because there was no one left willing to fight him for it. 

And he was good at the job. He kept people in this still-fragile station safe, at the end of the day, and that felt pretty damn good.

Recently, Mei had taken to lingering a bit after school to chat with her friends, and she'd stopped holding his hand as they went through the station. Amos took it philosophically - she was growing up. Prax had a certain amount of angst about it, but he didn't have the experience with kids that Amos did. And they'd fought pretty fucking hard to watch her grow up.

Once she was finished, she went to Amos with a big smile on her face. "Jaime likes a boy in class." She was either a terrible gossip or had zero filters - Amos was still trying to figure out which.

"Well, good for him. Do you like anyone?" They ambled away from school, and people moved to let them pass. 

"No, ick." Mei shook her head vehemently, braids flying.

Amos chuckled. "That's okay, you take your time, Sunshine." 

"Whose turn is it to cook tonight?" She looked at Amos sideways.

"Your dad's, so you can relax. But we can stop for a snack, if you want. He's working a little late." Amos' cooking was okay, but it couldn't hold a candle to Prax's. 

"Good, because I'm STARVING," Mei declared dramatically, as if she were about to perish at any moment from the cruel pangs of hunger. 

Amos grinned when she forgot herself and grabbed his hand in the market. 

Life was good.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. The Ring was inconvenient, so I deleted it. Oops.  
> 2\. If you're curious, my inspiration: Broken Love, by Imminence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLaFNPIIYQs  
> 3\. Come and find me on Tumblr! https://www.tumblr.com/blog/songaboutexiles


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